


Regret

by TeaRoses



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walter looks back on his life, wondering what could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

> Gonzoverse, with a little borrowing from Hellsing: The Dawn for his backstory.
> 
> Originally written for chiave_trust for the prompt Walter Dornez, regret.

Walter keeps an old wedding photo in his bedside drawer. The groom looks surprised in this picture, as if he cannot believe he is actually married. The bride looks very formal, almost stern, perhaps because in those days it was not the fashion to smile for photographs.

This is the only picture of his parents that Walter has. He does have a photo of himself as a baby in an old-fashioned christening dress, but only his mother's hands are visible.

He hasn't seen his parents since he was thirteen years old. That was when he went off to Hellsing as a servant. In the end his service had consisted of being dropped in the middle of the war. That same war had killed his parents; they had not escaped the bombing of London. He had been allowed to attend their small funeral and then sent again on a mission the next day.

After all these years, his memories are growing dim, though a few shine through. He can remember his mother bringing him a glass of milk when he got home from school, telling him to drink it down and be a strong boy. She always made gingerbread, and he can still taste its spicy sweetness. When the war made sugar difficult to get she had found a way to make it with honey, until flour became scarce as well. Sometimes she would sing along with the radio, all the songs of the war years that Walter still cannot hear without missing her painfully.

When he was little his father told him spectacular stories of heroic deeds. Walter thought his father had an amazing imagination. It was only later, when he went to school, that he found out they had been borrowed from Greek and Roman myths. But that didn't really bother him. He still knows who Perseus is, and Odysseus, because of his father sitting by his bedside and telling their exploits.

Walter stopped going to school when he went to work for Hellsing. Any education he got after that came from the books in the Hellsing library. His teachers had encouraged him to think of university, but being a Royal Protestant Knight seemed so much more important. And perhaps it was.

But his dedication to battling the undead had prevented so much more. He never married, because he worried he might be killed at any time and it seemed unfair to subject a woman to a life like that. But now he is alone. If only everything had been different, he might be surrounded by children and grandchildren by now. He had helped to raise Integra, but he is not her family and they both know it.

Most of the time Walter keeps his mind on his duties and his research. But now and then he still opens the drawer to look at this photograph, and pretends he has a child sitting beside him, and can say, "That's your great-grandfather there. His name was Walter too."


End file.
